Shopping for Recessed Lights

"If you use the wrong trim, half of the available light will never leave the fixture"

No type of lighting offers more versatility
for residential construction
than recessed cans. One lighting
catalog boasts of "a thousand
options" to choose from. Unfortunately, this is
a little overwhelming to sort through — which
is why most of us go with whatever our electrician
likes to install. The purpose of this article
is to break down recessed lighting to its essential
components and help you choose fixtures
suited to a variety of applications.
No matter who
manufactures it, a
recessed downlight
is made up of three basic components: the
housing, commonly known as a "can"; the trim,
which includes the interior baffle or reflector and
the ceiling ring; and what designers and engineers
call the lamp, which